"Jobs, jobs, jobs. … As President Bush said on Friday, 'the American economy heads into 2006 with a full head of team.' Thanks, in part, to the tax cuts pushed by President Bush in 2001 and again in 2003, the economy is headed in the right direction. Most importantly, Americans' businesses are headed in the right direction." [Scott Walker Blog, 1/7/06]

On no other issue has Scott Walker provided less leadership than jobs. In 2009 alone, Milwaukee County lost over 30,000 jobs. Walker’s failure to prioritize job creation and economic development has devastated Milwaukee County’s workers. Walker has punted responsibility or mismanaged three job creation and economic development offices. After several years of cutting funding by almost 50 percent to the Office of Community Business Development Partners, the County Board took control of the division in 2006. In his 2007 budget, Walker first stripped millions of dollars from the Department of Administrative Service’s Economic and Community Development Division, and then completely eliminated the division in 2009.

In 2007, due to Walker’s inaction, the state was forced to strip authority from Walker over the Private Industry Council and give it to the City of Milwaukee after complaints about its effectiveness and loss of funding sources.

Walker lowers budgets for economic development divisions from $18-19 million to just over $1 million

When Walker was elected he had two divisions under his supervision that managed economic development programs in the county, the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) Economic & Community Development division and Executive Office was the Office of Community Business Development Partners. Walker slashed CBDP funding by half and totally eliminated DAS in 2009.